With the never-ending battle between Tifa and Aerith for Cloud's love, albeit fueled by internet fandom, most of us are blinded towards the other romance-induced subplots, such as Vincent and Lucrecia or Cid and Sheera. Undoubtedly, there's much sought-out depth and speculation between Cloud and Tifa, but there's that in other places, between other characters as well. We just tend to ignore and forget about them.

Although the theme of romantic love isn't very prevalent in the seventh installment as it is in other games, it is somehow present on a miniscule level loaded with some very specific baggage. No matter how small the issue is, humankind cannot go without love, though these characters are every inch human as a they are fiction. After looking at the pattern of each character's relationships, the overall message on romance, and love in general, in Final Fantasy VII is that it never comes without pain and sorrow.

Zack and Aerith is one of the few canonically established relationships within the game, and one of the few in the Final Fantasy series that we see from beginning to end. Although it closes the gap between what we view as two people “dating”, there is still some ambiguity at certain points. Take, for example, the time they spent together off screen (if there was any); In Crisis Core, the time span from the point of their meeting to their departure is easily a few years. The time portrayed in the game does not distinguish the entirety of their relationship, only moments which were relevant to the storyline. The Final Fantasy VII Compilation staff has made it clear, time and time again, that certain parts of the story or plot will remain unexplained and ambiguous. I try to uphold that philisophy by not letting the opinions of this site define Zack and Aerith.

In any case, I would like to make a statement, or rather, a general author's note that despite the creation of this site: I am in no way a supporter of Zack and Aerith as an internet fandom, they're not my "OTP", and there's no way in hell that I would hypothesize that they're making babies in the Lifestream. I do, however, appreciate their relationship and their impact on other characters, the plot, and the connoted message behind the storyline. On a more interpersonal level, I embrace the interaction between the two from their cute moments, to their flaws, and ultimately, their downfall.

I think, when creating this site, I wanted to look at this particular relationship on a more objective level. Rather than giving a list of reasons why they should be together, I tried to look at how they work and shape one another by picking out which particular aspects contribute to that. Whether or not I do that successfully is up for debate. With that in mind, good luck, and I hope you enjoy browsing the site.